I just spent about an hour and a half speaking with a CS representative that was really clueless (he actually made me put in a setting that royally screwed up my 800w and took about 20 minutes to fix his suggestion).

Here's my situation....

I am still in the 30 days "trial" for my new account. I get horrible reception inside my home but seem to get pretty good reception when I'm traveling around. My phone is my business phone and I work out of my house (starting to see the problem? ).

I know the airrave (or is it airave) is coming out in a few days and I gave CS a call and told them that I think the airave would be a good solution, but I'm not liking the idea of spending $100 on a piece of equipment plus $5/month service so that I can do VoIP onto my own broad band connection.

My options are...

Option 1 - to cancel my service, which will be a pain because I've already started marketing my company with the main phone number and don't want to switch my information (and my business cards/letterhead/etc...)

Option 2 - Buy the airrave and the service at full price and try to fix Sprints bad service on my own dime (last ditch effort but may be more painless than option 1)

Option 3 - Try CS again...but my first 90 minutes of CS gave me nothing...the phone call actually ended up with the CS guy saying "Sir, do you want me to cancel the service now for you?".

And when I called CS, it was "*2" on my cell phone...which was funny because the CS guy originally asked me to take the battery out of my phone in which I replied that this would end our conversation fairly quickly.

Any ideas? Is there a "better" CS number to call where I can talk to someone that will give a hoot about loosing a 2-year contract? Any other options you can think of?

What I want is some sort of deal on the airave....don't care how good of a deal really, but it's the principal of it where I don't want to pay full price to do a fix on a brand new contract where it shouldn't be my obligation to fix it. Help?! And thanks.

Were you a Sprint customer prior? Is it a Treo reception issue or a general Sprint reception issue?

If this is your first Sprint phone and you are still in your 30 days, I think you are going to be hard pressed to get them to give you a deal on the airrave because signal's not strong enough at your home. That's what the 30 days is for.

Also, unless this is a *brand new account* you could just return the 800w and port your number to another carrier that has better service, or even try a different device on Sprint first.

I do feel your pain. My 700P had really poor/spotty reception at my home which made working from home a pain. The 800W has been much better for me personally. Holds strong no matter where I am in the house.

Short of building a new cell tower outside your house, reception problems are just something we all deal with. The only people who buy Airave are people with reception problems so it sounds like that is your solution.

Short of building a new cell tower outside your house, reception problems are just something we all deal with. The only people who buy Airave are people with reception problems so it sounds like that is your solution.

The OP wants a free Airrave. They shouldn't charge us per month for them, IMO.

You may not be using their towers, but you are still using their service, and all that entails.

You're already paying for the service.

It's $5 a month for us to use our bandwidth to connect to Sprint and use our minutes.

I can understand the $10 a month for unlimited talking but I think the $5 a month to use only the minute we already have using our own bandwidth is ludicrous. You're already paying the phone bill for Sprint's service and you're paying your internet bill for internet; why would you need to pay yet another fee for using two services you're already paying for? Seems silly to me.

I say charge $100 for it and $10 a month for unlimited but don't charge for users to use their own minute on their own internet connection.

It's $5 a month for us to use our bandwidth to connect to Sprint and use our minutes.

I can understand the $10 a month for unlimited talking but I think the $5 a month to use only the minute we already have using our own bandwidth is ludicrous. You're already paying the phone bill for Sprint's service and you're paying your internet bill for internet; why would you need to pay yet another fee for using two services you're already paying for? Seems silly to me.

I say charge $100 for it and $10 a month for unlimited but don't charge for users to use their own minute on their own internet connection.

I agree that the $5 to use your own minutes is rather silly and redundant. If I could make one change to their plan, that would be it.

I suppose it's there to prevent people from setting it up and then using tons of night/weekend minutes on it (IE: downloading from BT all night long). But it's still silly.

OP, FWIW, I would find cell service that works and switch to it. Then get a Kall8 number for your business or something similar so you don't have to mess around with your marketing collateral every time something changes. It'll be one-time pain, but worth it.

It's $5 a month for us to use our bandwidth to connect to Sprint and use our minutes.

I can understand the $10 a month for unlimited talking but I think the $5 a month to use only the minute we already have using our own bandwidth is ludicrous. You're already paying the phone bill for Sprint's service and you're paying your internet bill for internet; why would you need to pay yet another fee for using two services you're already paying for? Seems silly to me.

I say charge $100 for it and $10 a month for unlimited but don't charge for users to use their own minute on their own internet connection.

I agree that charging for the Airrave is stupid. It's like they're trying to copy cable providers that rent out boxes and modems, but with the up front charge, that makes no sense. You should just be able to buy the Airrave and use it for free. Unlimited minutes is something that should be paid for, unless you have one of those plans already, but plan minutes should not be charged for again.

Get the Airrave. It is your only solution if you want to keep sprint. I know how it is... 2 major carriers (verizon/cingular) don't work in half my house. Sprint happens to work perfectly (even in my basement).

Jump over to SprintUsers.com and ask for help there. There's a number of CSRs who are members, and genuinely interested in helping out. Also, there's a FAQ with all known Sprint #s listed. Escalate this to another division such as Retentions or Executive Services, and see what they can do for you.

I agree that the $5 to use your own minutes is rather silly and redundant. If I could make one change to their plan, that would be it.
I suppose it's there to prevent people from setting it up and then using tons of night/weekend minutes on it (IE: downloading from BT all night long). But it's still silly.

Why would it be any difference since everyone has nights and weekends?

I think it is more likely that the $5 is RD recovery and also to cover support. That is reasonable since VErizon is going to copy it and save the costs of lessons learned.

That being said they are pretty much waiving both the $100 and the $5/month for almost everyone who causally asks

I sent an email to a CS guy on that sprintusers.com forum....hopefully that will work.

And people have posted it before but I wanted to clarify...I have the unlimited minutes/data plan (normal price, not SERO) and I think it's just WRONG for Sprint to have me pay and extra $100 for the equipment and $5/month for a bandaid on their service. I would like to get the equipment free and the service free but would be happy with either/or (i.e. the equipment free and I'd pay the monthly service or vice-versa). I'm leaning towards going with VZW and just paying 50% more per month for my service but dang...I'm not even sure I can port the number! Thanks for the suggestions.

I got an Airave for free the other day, with the monthly service fee waived as well. It hasn't arrived yet, but it was pretty easy to convince them that I needed it.
I pushed my point that service has been crappy in my house since I moved from Verizon to Sprint over two years ago, and now that I'm faced with a choice of whether or not I'd like to renew my contract, I'm seriously considering switching back to the V where I'd pay more but have no dropped calls. They immediately offered me the Airave to keep me as a customer

P.S. I would never pay for the Airave, out of principle more than anything. As people above me stated, the only thing they're advancing you is the equipment, all subsequent upkeep is based off your own equipment. Why should I pay an additional monthly fee just to receive service that should be standard in my area to begin with? And yes... I consider not dropping an incoming or outgoing call within 10 seconds of initiation to be standard!